


The Staircase to the Girls' Dorm

by torestoreamends



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Thorne & Rowling
Genre: Coming Out, Friendship, Gen, Harry Potter Next Generation, Post-Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Trans/Non-binary Albus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:55:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24738856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/torestoreamends/pseuds/torestoreamends
Summary: Albus has spent a lot of time feeling lost, questioning himself, and now he's determined to find some answers. One night he sneaks down to the Slytherin Common Room and tries stepping onto the girls' staircase. It doesn't reject him.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 75





	The Staircase to the Girls' Dorm

**Author's Note:**

> I think we all know why I've written this fic, and I just want to say that books, stories, and characters only come alive when they're read. Hogwarts exists because we imagine it. It's whatever we want it to be. As readers and as lovers of this world, we have the power to decide how it looks and who belongs there. And if anyone reading this has any doubt, I promise you, you belong.
> 
> (As an additional note, the reason I've used he/him pronouns for Albus in this fic is because he's still exploring his identity and learning about who he is. If I write any future fics in this series, Albus's pronouns will certainly change.)

The deep greenish murk of moonlight through the lake wraps Albus in a cloak of shadow, as he tiptoes down the stairs from the Slytherin boys’ dorm at one in the morning.

He holds his breath as he descends. With every step, the spiral staircase creaks like a ship in a gentle swell. It’s impossible to stay silent. But at least everyone else is asleep. Hopefully.

Cold flagstones nibble at his feet as he steps onto the Common Room floor. It’s silent. Deserted. Inky shadows ripple over empty leather sofas, abandoned quills, stacks of books, a ball of parchment that didn’t quite make it into the fire. The silver flicker of a sleepy shoal of passing fish glitters up a shadowy wall. Albus exhales and shuffles across to the nearest sofa, hugging himself to try and keep his shivers at bay.

The sofa swallows him up when he sinks into it. Before he came to Hogwarts, he always imagined the Slytherin Common Room as an uncomfortable, forbidding space. All slippery, tough leather. Cold and dark and dingy. In reality it couldn’t be more the opposite. Everything here is luxurious in a homely way — the sort of squashy sofas you can splay your whole body out on and have the most excellent nap; light of a watery green so peaceful that it’s impossible to be anxious when you’re immersed in it.

Albus leans his head back and gazes up at the fathoms of dark water above him. Inhales. Exhales. Relaxes his shoulders. Relying on the water’s calming powers to melt all the tension out of him.

He sits like that for five minutes before he finally lifts his head. The matching black spindles of the spiral staircases lead upwards in front of him. They’re perfectly parallel. Identical. Except for that one thing: one he’s climbed every day since he arrived at this school; the other he’s never set foot on.

Recently he’s spent a lot of time feeling lost. Questioning things. His house, his family, his heart. There’s so much he’s managed to put in order, but then there’s the other stuff. The stuff inside his head. The stuff he’s half terrified he’s making up, because what if everyone feels like this? This lost? This uncertain? This disconnected from themselves?

Now things have begun to fall into place, he’s been left with this big, hollow space inside him. A vast chasm of wrongness. Eating away at his insides. Enough to make him wonder if maybe this was the problem all along, and everything else was just a series of tell-tale cracks and warning signs.

It’s taken him weeks of wistful glances and what ifs and maybe todays to get to tonight. Sitting here on this sofa. In the place he feels most like himself. Working up the courage to get some answers.

The bottoms of the staircases are eight steps away. It might as well be a mile.

Albus stretches his feet out in front of him. They barely make a dent on the distance. It’s a yawning chasm. And there’s every chance that he’ll cross it and find out he’s wrong. Or not accepted. Or something. What’s he supposed to do then?

_One worry at a time_ , his logical inner voice tells him. It’s comforting. It sounds an awful lot like Scorpius.

One worry at a time. He plants his feet back on the floor. The shock of cold centres him inside himself.

He gets to his feet. Heart pulsing in his ears. Chill air slicing his throat. Fists clenched with the fire he gets from his mum and the determination he gets from his dad. No matter what happens next, he’ll always have that. He’ll always be himself.

With each step, he digs his nails into his palms, throws anxious glances up at the staircases, until he’s there. At the bottom of the staircase to the girls’ dorm. A staircase he’s always been told he can’t climb. 

He edges his foot forward across the flagstone floor until his toes touch the very edge of the wooden step. Holding his breath, he reaches up and rests a hand on the bannister. It’s worn like the bannister of the boys’ staircase, but in different ways. Pitted in different places. The black paint rubbed shiny by hundreds and thousands of hands. He curls his fingers around it, holds on tight, and takes a step.

There’s a soft creak as his foot settles onto the first stair. Then silence. No sudden click of steps becoming a spiral slide. No nothing. Except darkness and stillness and the tick of a clock on the mantelpiece, matching the drumming of his heart.

Cautiously, he lifts his other foot off the ground. He stands on the bottom step to the girls’ dorms, staring up and up and up as they spiral away above him. Then he looks down at his feet, and tears start to prickle his eyes.

He blinks them back. Turns round. Sinks onto the steps. Buries his face in his hands. The hollow space inside him is being flooded, like someone’s opened a dam, like the vast depths of the lake above are pouring into his soul. It leaks out, dribbling over his fingers and down his cheeks. 

When he draws in a soft snuffly breath and slumps against the bannisters, Hogwarts takes his weight.

He sits like that for a long time that night, hugging himself, head bowed, tears spilling down his face. Trying to get used to being there. Existing in a space that might be his.

When he finally gets up to go, he doesn’t have any tears left and he’s exhausted. His legs shake as he drags himself back up the familiar spiral of the boys’ stairs. At the top he tips himself straight into bed and falls asleep. 

By the morning, it feels like a dream. Except for the fact that his face is still blotchy and red, and when he passes the girls’ staircase the next morning, he remembers how it felt beneath him. The weathered steps. The smooth wood. The lumps and bumps of the bannister.

That night he goes back again. And the night after. And the night after that. With each visit he feels stronger, braver, more solid. The hollow bits of him filling in. The seed of whatever this is germinating, growing roots.

On the fifth night, he’s brushing his teeth before bed when Scorpius materialises next to him.

“I have a question.”

“Oh dear,” Albus tries to say. It gets lost in a gargle of foam, which dribbles down his chin onto his pyjama top. “Merlin’s saggy left-” He spits the rest of the foam out and flicks some water at Scorpius to punish him for laughing. “If you keep doing that I won’t answer your question.”

“Okay okay. Sorry.” Scorpius draws in a deep breath to calm himself, until all that’s left is the tight press of his lips, barely concealing a smile.

“You have a question.” Albus says, rinsing his toothbrush.

“I do.”

“Is it a question any human being has the answer to?”

“I hope you will.”

“A question I might be able to answer! That’s rare. Go on.”

Scorpius nods. His smile evaporates as if he cast a Vanishing Charm on it. “Where do you keep sneaking off to at night?”

It’s a shock of a question. Albus feels like he’s just been plunged into ice cold water. All the air rushes out of him. He stumbles back, heart pounding.

“I haven’t been going anywhere,” he says, so fast the words fall over themselves in their hurry to get out. It’s the most obvious lie he’s ever told.

Scorpius blinks, apparently taken aback by the answer. He twists his toothbrush between his hands and chews the inside of his lip. “Sorry if- I was just curious. You don’t have to tell me.” He stands there awkwardly for a moment longer, then he squirts toothpaste onto his toothbrush and stares down at it. Lost. A little frown creasing his forehead.

Albus takes a breath. He knots his fingers together. “I-I didn’t think...”

“You didn’t think anyone would notice.” Scorpius nods. “I can... un-notice? If you want?”

Albus braces himself on the edge of the sink, staring at his reflection in the mirror. He looks the same as he always has. Shock of black hair, his dad’s vivid green eyes, sharp nose, clenched jaw. All lines and angles. He studies himself, trying to imagine what his face would look like if it was softer, narrower, framed by longer hair. It’s sort of starting to grow out, curling just below his ears.

“You’ve been quiet,” Scorpius murmurs.

Albus looks past his own reflection to look at Scorpius, standing just behind him, eyes the soft silver of an overcast dawn.

“I know you do this sometimes. It’s when I need to worry about you. And then there’s this sneaking out... Are you okay?”

Albus swallows and looks down into the sink, watching the water swirl away down the drain. The long trail of a whirlpool, bottomless and inevitable. If he’s going to do this he needs Scorpius. There’s no one else he’d tell first. It has to be Scorpius. Scorpius who’s his best friend, who’s always on his side.

“Will you come with me? Tonight? There’s something I need to tell you. Show you. Something.”

“Of course I’ll come. Just warn me though... Is it illegal? And does it involve danger? Because we agreed you would give me advance warning about that sort of thing.”

Albus cracks a smile and steps back so he can bump his shoulder against Scorpius’s. “Idiot. It’s not illegal or dangerous. Promise. It’s just... a thing. More than just a thing, I guess. Sort of important. To me.”

“I can do important and not illegal or dangerous.” He reaches out and loops his arm through Albus’s. “Whatever it is, I’ll be there.”

Albus squeezes his arm. “I know. Thank you.”

“Why did you have to start sneaking out in winter?” Scorpius whispers, wrapping his dressing gown round himself with an exaggerated shiver.

“Don’t know,” Albus mutters, not really listening. It’s one in the morning, they’re tiptoeing down the boys’ staircase, and his heart is in his mouth. He’s actually going to do this. Show Scorpius the truth. It won’t be a secret anymore. And what if Scorpius thinks it’s weird or stupid or-

_It’s Scorpius. Of course he won’t._

“Am I allowed to take bets on where we’re going?” Scorpius asks. “Because I think... the kitchens. No! The library. Have you been breaking into the Restricted Section for Potions’ books? You’re not brewing Polyjuice Potion are you? But who would we change into... No, I’m stumped.”

Albus steps off the bottom of the staircase and stops. Scorpius runs into the back of him.

“Whoops, sorry. You stopped. Why did you stop?”

Albus swallows. “We’re um. We’re here.”

Scorpius frowns. “The Common Room? This is it? This doesn’t even count as sneaking out... I don’t know whether to be disappointed or proud.” He goes over and flops onto the nearest sofa, the one facing the stairs. “So why have you been sneaking down to the Common Room in the middle of the night?”

“Because. I’ve um. I’ve been trying to figure something out. And I... I mean I haven’t figured anything out. Not really. But I’ve made a start. Even though I don’t know what it means or anything. And I guess I wanted to show you. Because you’re my best friend, and maybe you can help me um. Help me figure it out?” He ruffles a hand through his hair and looks across at Scorpius. 

Scorpius sits forward on the sofa, peering at him through the semi-darkness. “I’m good at logicking. If there’s something that needs figuring out, I’m ready.”

“Yeah...” Albus exhales, breath trembling, and nods. “I know.” He paces back and forth in front of the staircases a couple of times, breathing in deep, trying to keep himself steady. Then, finally, he steps up onto the girls’ staircase and turns to face Scorpius.

“You can’t go up there, Albus, that’s the girls’- Oh...”

Silence. Albus stares down at Scorpius, heart pounding. Scorpius rests his elbows on his knees and frowns back at him.

“It didn’t turn into a slide.”

Albus shakes his head and twists his fingers together. “No. It... it doesn’t. The first time I came here I sort of hoped it would, but...” He gestures vaguely to the solid stairs, rests his hand on the bannister; looks down at his feet.

“So...” Scorpius shakes his head and leans back on the sofa. He crosses his legs on the seat. Wraps his hands round his ankles. “So you’ve been coming here? Every night?”

“Yeah.” Albus sinks down to sit on the step. “I just sit here, and... This is going to sound stupid. I sit here and I try to feel at home. Like I belong.”

“That doesn’t sound stupid at all.”

“No, it does. After everything we went through I still felt wrong. All that fixing and rebuilding, and still...”

“Just because things improved, doesn’t mean they were perfect.”

“Yeah.” Albus bows his head. “But I didn’t think I was this far from... I thought I was getting somewhere, and now it’s like I never knew myself at all. Or like maybe I was ignoring myself. Or everything was so shit that it buried this. So now I’m starting all over again.” He slumps against the bannister and crosses his arms, jaw clenched tight to try and hold back whatever is trying to break out of him. Tears. Anger. Frustration.

Scorpius gets up from the sofa and pads across to sit on the floor at the bottom of the stairs. He reaches out and puts a hand on Albus’s foot. “I’m sorry.”

Albus sniffs and rests his head on the bannister, eyes blurry with tears. “I don’t even know what it means,” he whispers. “I’m sitting here and I... I don’t know. It’s right, somehow, but I don’t know if I feel like a girl, or a boy, or... I don’t even know what I’m meant to feel like.”

Scorpius frowns. “I’ve never even thought about what it feels like to be a boy. I just know I am one.”

“Lucky.”

“I suppose I am...”

There’s a moment of silence, in which Albus wipes his nose on his sleeve. Finally, Scorpius squeezes his foot.

“Can I ask a question? I hope it’s not offensive.”

“Go on.”

“Why did you come down here in the first place? What made you want to try it?”

“Because... Because I was worried I was making it up. About how wrong I felt. I was worried everyone felt like this and I was just being stupid. I-I wanted to know the truth.”

“That’s a pretty good reason.”

“Is it?”

Scorpius nods. “I think so. And it’s a brave thing to do. If it were me... I think I would have been too scared.”

“No you wouldn’t. You’re the bravest person I know.”

“In some ways. But not like this. Not like... facing something big.”

“You came out to your dad.”

“Yes, but I think we both knew that was coming for a long time. The hard bit was finding the words. And asking him to listen. Whereas this is like.... Enormous. You had a question and you answered it for yourself, even though it might have all these...” He gestures up at the staircase above them. “Implications.”

“I had to know. I couldn’t just wonder.”

“See. This is why I like you.” Scorpius smiles up at him, warm and bright. “You couldn’t just wonder. You never let yourself get lost, you keep finding yourself. Again and again. That’s brave.”

“Wouldn’t you go mad not knowing though?”

Scorpius shrugs. “I don’t know. Sometimes it’s easier to pretend everything’s fine.”

Albus shakes his head. “It’s not. It’s impossible.”

Scorpius pokes him in the foot. “I think you should just admit it. You’re brave.”

“I’m really not.”

“You are though.”

“Scorpius!”

Scorpius pokes him again. “I’m not stopping until you admit it.”

“But I’m not!”

“Yes you are.”

“Fine! I’m brave.”

“Thank you.”

“But...” Albus sighs, shoulders slumping. “Being brave doesn’t help me know what to do next.”

“Yes it does. You’ve already done it.”

“What have I done?”

“You told me.”

“Yes but... That was inevitable.”

“That’s a big word for a small person.”

Albus swats at him. “You know what I mean. Telling you isn’t even a step. Why would I not?”

“It is though. A step. And it means you’re not on your own. A problem shared is a problem halved and all that.”

“Yeah.” Albus sits very still for a moment, then nudges his foot against Scorpius’s arm. “Sorry I didn’t tell you I was sneaking out.”

“Don’t apologise. Everyone needs thinking time.”

“Yeah... But still...”

“Nope. No sorries. Instead, I am going to hug you now.” Scorpius picks himself up off the floor and comes over to perch on the stairs next to Albus.

“Oh no.”

“Oh yes.”

“Scorpius, you can’t-”

As Scorpius hops up onto the stairs and starts to wrap his arms round Albus, there’s a loud, rhythmic clicking. A second later, the staircase becomes a slide beneath them, depositing them side by side on the Common Room floor.

“Whoops. I forgot that would happen.”

“Idiot.”

“Can I pretend I was testing it for you, to check it’s working?”

Albus rolls his eyes. “If you must.”

“Well,” Scorpius reaches back and pats the newly reformed bottom step. “You’ll be relieved to know it is working.”

Albus huffs and sags against Scorpius’s side. “You’re ridiculous.”

“Sometimes.” Scorpius gives Albus a tight squeeze. “But whatever I am, and whatever you are, I hope you know that I love you very much.”

“Yeah. You too.” Albus buries his face in Scorpius’s shoulder and lets himself be swamped by the hug. 

He’s braced between Scorpius and the worn bottom step of the ancient staircase leading to the girls’ dorm. Nestled and supported, some more of the hollow emptiness inside him filling up with warm sunlight. He might not know anything yet — who he is, who he wants to be — but he has his best friend, and he has this whole ancient school on his side. And that’s not nothing. That’s an excellent place to start.


End file.
